ISLAMABAD, June 9: The budget planners have decided to increase the taxpayers number to 2.4 million in 2004-05 by netting the retailers whose taxable income has been identified through Wapda , telephone and other utility bills.

According to sources, Similarly, the number of taxable corporate sector companies would be increased from 13,000 to 26,000 during the next financial year. The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has helped identify the new companies at the behest of the Central Board of Revenue (CBR).

It was said that there existed a "huge gap" which needed to be bridged to have a substantial number of new companies to be brought under the formal tax net. The sources said the government had decided to remove loopholes and weaknesses in the system to avoid the piling of refunds.

A total of Rs90 billion refund- Rs55 billion in sales tax, Rs20 billion in income tax and Rs13 billion in custom rebate- has piled up. The government was working out a scheme under which upfront piling of the refund and rebate would be discouraged at very initial stages.

"Tariff regime is also being rationalized to remove the existing anomalies in the new budget," said a senior official of the CBR. The cause of huge refund pile-up had been identified and would be removed in the next budget, he assured.

He said that so far 80 per cent anomalies had been removed while the remaining 20 per cent were expected to be eliminated in the budget. Responding to a question, he said that the existing four sales tax slab of 15 per cent, 18 per cent, 20 per cent and 23 per cent had created "distortions" which would also be corrected in the new budget.

Asked about relief to the salaried classes, the official said that the taxable income, which had been revised upward from Rs60,000 to Rs80,000 in the current budget, was likely to be further stretched to Rs100,000 or little more.

About the CBR restructuring, he said that the process had started and that it would take some time to revamp the whole organization for which the World Bank was providing $100 million credit line. He said it was a three-year plan to restructure the CBR in order to remove leakages and increase the country's revenues.

"Then we are considering to withdraw some of the undue exemptions in the next budget," the official said. However, he declined to provide the details. About the reforms in customs, he said that a proposal was being examined and finalized to clear the whole goods cleared within 24 hours so that eventually there was no refund attached to it.